Why oom-pah-pah is life-affirming

-- AIDS Walk participant Robert Doerrvowed to walk all 6.2 miles of it Sunday while playing the accordion. He was going to play waltzes, he said in a YouTube video in which he pledged to do this feat, because the three-quarter-time beat of the music is like that of the human heart: boom-boom rest; boom-boom rest; and so on. Vice versa, the human heart is a living squeezebox.

-- As to the Conservatory of Flowers and its efforts to pollinate a vanilla orchid, George McRaeof El Cerrito has had an orchid growing in his bathroom for about seven years, since his wife bought an 18-inch-long vine at the Pacific Orchid Exposition.

McRae has that old pollinating knack. ("Don't tell my wife," he cracked.) One year, he harvested 16 beans; this year, he has so far harvested nine and has six beans that are growing. It takes about a year for the pods to ripen. Once his harvest is complete, McRae has made vanilla extract, ground it into powder and used it in baking, cooking and home-made ice cream. "I've tried to out-Martha Martha."

-- John Leydeckeradopted an 8-year-old dog, Lucy, from Muttville ( www.muttville.org), and was told that he should attend to her toilette with Buddy Wash, a "natural" shampoo. The label, he said, is marked, "Buddy Wash is not tested on animals, but is safe for humans."

-- The Judah L. Magnes Museum took 53 guests to Steve Oliver's sculpture ranch in Geyserville to hear a performance of Shahrokh Yadegari's "Tower Sounds: Ancient Voices and Electronics," which combines ancient Hebrew and Persian elements with electronic technology. The performance was in Ann Hamilton's tower, designed for acoustics, but the work's tech element mandated power. Since the tower (like all sculptures on the ranch) stands apart from other structures, Berkeley's Meyer Sound strung almost a mile of electric cable - hidden so as to be nearly invisible amid all that nature - for the music-making.

In a new series of PSAs, Tomlin, as the beloved communicator Ernestine, answers the phone in the claims department for "Controlled Healthcare Insurance Corp." ("You must think HMO stands for Help Me Out. Remember, your health is our business, not our concern.")

Eleven San Francisco "gentlemen's clubs" (strippers, pole dancers; not backgammon in the parlor) took to Facebook to announce that they are holding a job fair this afternoon at the Holiday Inn at Fisherman's Wharf. "The focus is always on the entertainers," said Axel Sang of BSC Management, but people are needed to make and serve the drinks, and "to greet and take care of the customers."

The clubs say that more than a quarter of their customers are women.

In the going:

-- Returning to SFO from a visit to New York, Elaine Molinariwas waiting for her son to pick her up outside the luggage claim area. Limos aren't supposed to be trolling for passengers in that area, and when two of them pulled up, about 15 cabbies beeped their horns at them for three or four minutes, causing at least one of them to leave. "Cabs are doing their own policing ..." said Molinari. "Just loved it! God, it's good to be home."

-- And Lourdes Livingston, headed downtown on the 1AX California on Wednesday morning, heard the bus operator announce the bus was out of gas. He parked at Bush near Divisadero, in front of the King-American Ambulance Co., to wait for rescue. Meanwhile, a busload of passengers stood around outside. The bus was in front of a King exit driveway, blocking one of two exits for ambulances called to emergencies.

A Muni emergency vehicle arrived to push the bus away, and a substitute bus finally arrived for the stranded passengers. As the operator brought that bus downtown, she pointed out to passengers an earlier 1AX California bus being towed.

Public Eavesdropping

"We should probably get off here and get used to it, since we're going to Rome in October."

Woman to man, as the 30-Stockton passed through North Beach, overheard by Ann Elliott